1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a computer system, and more particularly, to computer system and method supporting likeness determination using a graphical user interface to simplify image analysis.
2. Related Art
Recent advances in personal computers and workstations has enabled businesses to adapt the computer to a variety of tasks once reserved for the computer literate. Traditionally, complex computational tasks required skilled users to program computers for data gathering, analysis, and the like.
Even scientifically inclined persons required special computer training. Training typically began by learning computer languages such as Fortran, Pascal or C, and developing a familiarity with computer operating systems such as DOS or UNIX. The cost of hiring or training people to use computers added to the problem of using computers for a wider variety of tasks.
Competition in the computer manufacturing industry over the past decade has led to a dramatic cost reduction for computers. This cost reduction coupled with technology advancements has spawned the software industry to develop applications that made using computers easier.
An important development that accelerated the use of computers was the evolution of the graphical user interface (GUI), which followed the character user interface (CUI or "chewy"). Two popular GUIs are the Apple.RTM. Macintosh.RTM. and Microsoft.RTM. Windows.TM. interfaces. Both interfaces are WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") interfaces. This interface uses "windows" to display various operations (e.g., file transfer, setup utilities, messaging, etc.) and applications (e.g, word processors, games, etc.) to the user to interface with the computer. Microsoft.RTM. and many UNIX.RTM.-based developers have adopted similar window-based GUIs. Window-based software applications have become the default user interface for computers.
Many computational-intensive scientific and engineering software applications were slow to be implemented as window-based applications. However, object-oriented programming techniques have simplified writing window-code for complicated applications. These programming techniques have also made window-based applications more flexible with regard to how they can present and reproduce data.
The use of icons has also simplified interaction with computers. For example, state-of-the-art spreadsheet applications, such as Microsoft.RTM. Excel, include an interface to facilitate the displaying and printing of spreadsheet data. Via a pull-down menu, a user can access a window that prompts the user to select a display or print option. The options are displayed as small pictorial representations (e.g., buttons or icons). The buttons or icons are representative of what the data can look like (e.g., a histogram, pie-chart, bar graph, or the like). The user can simply use a pointing device to "click" the bar graph button to display the spreadsheet data as a bar graph. The new bar graph can then be printed. This functionality simplifies the display/print process. Conventionally, the user would have to specially format the data and follow a series of (sometime complicated) operations to yield the desired result. In this example, formatting of the data has been eliminated. If the user decides the bar graph does not connote the desired meaning, he need only select a different pictorial representation.
The present invention does not use images to represent a desired output format of the data, but it uses images to permit non-specialized users to perform operations on data that doesn't require the user to posses in-depth knowledge of the data.